The end of the autobiography. Augustine tells of his
resigning from his professorship and of the days at Cassiciacum in
preparation for baptism. He is baptized together with Adeodatus and
Alypius. Shortly thereafter, they start back for Africa. Augustine
recalls the ecstasy he and his mother shared in Ostia and then reports
her death and burial and his grief. The book closes with a moving
prayer for the souls of Monica, Patricius, and all his fellow citizens
of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Who am I, and what is my nature? What evil is there not
in me and my deeds; or if not in my deeds, my words; or if not in my
words, my will? But thou, O Lord, art good and merciful, and thy right
hand didst reach into the depth of my death and didst empty out the
abyss of corruption from the bottom of my heart. And this was the
result: now I did not will to do what I willed, and began to will to do
what thou didst will.

But where was my free will during all those years and
from what deep and secret retreat was it called forth in a single
moment, whereby I gave my neck to thy “easy yoke” and my
shoulders to thy “light burden,” O Christ Jesus, “my
Strength and my Redeemer”? How sweet did it suddenly become to me
to be without the sweetness of trifles! And it was now a joy to put
away what I formerly feared to lose. For thou didst cast them away from
me, O true and highest Sweetness. Thou didst cast them away, and in
their place thou didst enter in thyself--sweeter than all pleasure,
though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled
than all mystery; more exalted than all honor, though not to them that
are exalted in their own eyes. Now was my soul free from the gnawing
cares of seeking and getting, of wallowing in the mire and scratching
the itch of lust. And I prattled like a child to thee, O Lord my
God--my light, my riches, and my salvation.

CHAPTER II

2. And it seemed right to me, in thy sight, not to
snatch my tongue’s service abruptly out of the speech market, but
to withdraw quietly, so that the young men who were not concerned about
thy law or thy peace, but with mendacious follies and forensic strifes,
might no longer purchase from my mouth weapons for their frenzy.
Fortunately, there were only a few days before the “vintage
vacation”268268 An imperial holiday
season, from late August to the middle of October.; and I determined to
endure them, so that I might resign in due form and, now bought by
thee, return for sale no more.

My plan was known to thee, but, save for my own
friends, it was not known to other men. For we had agreed that it
should not be made public; although, in our ascent from the
“valley of tears” and our singing of “the song of
degrees,” thou hadst given us sharp arrows and hot burning coals
to stop that deceitful tongue which opposes under the guise of good
counsel, and devours what it loves as though it were food.

3. Thou hadst pierced our heart with thy love, and we
carried thy words, as it were, thrust through our vitals. The examples
of thy servants whom thou hadst changed from black to shining white,
and from death to life, crowded into the bosom of our thoughts and
burned and consumed our sluggish temper, that we might not topple back
into the abyss. And they fired us exceedingly, so that every breath of
the deceitful tongue of our detractors might fan the flame and not blow
it out.

Though this vow and purpose of ours should find those
who would loudly praise it--for the sake of thy name, which thou hast
sanctified throughout the earth--it nevertheless looked like a
self-vaunting not to wait until the vacation time now so near. For if I
had left such a public office ahead of time, and had made the break in
the eye of the general public, all who took notice of this act of mine
and observed how near was the vintage time that I wished to anticipate
would have talked about me a great deal, as if I were trying to appear
a great person. And what purpose would it serve that people should
consider and dispute about my conversion so that my good should be evil
spoken of?

4. Furthermore, this same summer my lungs had begun to
be weak from too much literary labor. Breathing was difficult; the
pains in my chest showed that the lungs were affected and were soon
fatigued by too loud or prolonged speaking. This had at first been a
trial to me, for it would have compelled me almost of necessity to lay
down that burden of teaching; or, if I was to be cured and become
strong again, at least to take a leave for a while. But as soon as the
full desire to be still that I might know that thou art the
Lord269269 Cf. Ps. 46:10. arose and was confirmed in me, thou knowest,
my God, that I began to rejoice that I had this excuse ready--and not a
feigned one, either--which might somewhat temper the displeasure of
those who for their sons’ freedom wished me never to have any
freedom of my own.

Full of joy, then, I bore it until my time ran out--it
was perhaps some twenty days--yet it was some strain to go through with
it, for the greediness which helped to support the drudgery had gone,
and I would have been overwhelmed had not its place been taken by
patience. Some of thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in
this, since having once fully and from my heart enlisted in thy
service, I permitted myself to sit a single hour in the chair of
falsehood. I will not dispute it. But hast thou not, O most merciful
Lord, pardoned and forgiven this sin in the holy water270270 His subsequent baptism;
see below, Ch. VI. also, along with all the others, horrible
and deadly as they were?

CHAPTER III

5. Verecundus was severely disturbed by this new
happiness of mine, since he was still firmly held by his bonds and saw
that he would lose my companionship. For he was not yet a Christian,
though his wife was; and, indeed, he was more firmly enchained by her
than by anything else, and held back from that journey on which we had
set out. Furthermore, he declared he did not wish to be a Christian on
any terms except those that were impossible. However, he invited us
most courteously to make use of his country house so long as we would
stay there. O Lord, thou wilt recompense him for this “in the
resurrection of the just,”271271Luke 14:14. seeing that
thou hast already given him “the lot of the
righteous.”272272Ps. 125:3. For while we were
absent at Rome, he was overtaken with bodily sickness, and during it he
was made a Christian and departed this life as one of the faithful.
Thus thou hadst mercy on him, and not on him only, but on us as well;
lest, remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend to us and not
able to count him in thy flock, we should be tortured with intolerable
grief. Thanks be unto thee, our God; we are thine. Thy exhortations,
consolations, and faithful promises assure us that thou wilt repay
Verecundus for that country house at Cassiciacum--where we found rest
in thee from the fever of the world--with the perpetual freshness of
thy paradise in which thou hast forgiven him his earthly sins, in that
mountain flowing with milk, that fruitful mountain--thy own.

6. Thus Verecundus was full of grief; but Nebridius was
joyous. For he was not yet a Christian, and had fallen into the pit of
deadly error, believing that the flesh of thy Son, the Truth, was a
phantom.273273 The heresy of Docetism,
one of the earliest and most persistent of all Christological
errors. Yet he had come up
out of that pit and now held the same belief that we did. And though he
was not as yet initiated in any of the sacraments of thy Church, he was
a most earnest inquirer after truth. Not long after our conversion and
regeneration by thy baptism, he also became a faithful member of the
Catholic Church, serving thee in perfect chastity and continence among
his own people in Africa, and bringing his whole household with him to
Christianity. Then thou didst release him from the flesh, and now he
lives in Abraham’s bosom. Whatever is signified by that term
“bosom,” there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, thy son
by adoption, O Lord, and not a freedman any longer. There he lives; for
what other place could there be for such a soul? There he lives in that
abode about which he used to ask me so many questions--poor ignorant
one that I was. Now he does not put his ear up to my mouth, but his
spiritual mouth to thy fountain, and drinks wisdom as he desires and as
he is able--happy without end. But I do not believe that he is so
inebriated by that draught as to forget me; since thou, O Lord, who art
the draught, art mindful of us.

Thus, then, we were comforting the unhappy
Verecundus--our friendship untouched--reconciling him to our conversion
and exhorting him to a faith fit for his condition (that is, to his
being married). We tarried for Nebridius to follow us, since he was so
close, and this he was just about to do when at last the interim ended.
The days had seemed long and many because of my eagerness for leisure
and liberty in which I might sing to thee from my inmost part,
“My heart has said to thee, I have sought thy face; thy face, O
Lord, will I seek.”274274 Cf. Ps. 27:8.

CHAPTER IV

7. Finally the day came on which I was actually to be
relieved from the professorship of rhetoric, from which I had already
been released in intention. And it was done. And thou didst deliver my
tongue as thou hadst already delivered my heart; and I blessed thee for
it with great joy, and retired with my friends to the villa.275275 The group included
Monica, Adeodatus (Augustine's fifteen-year-old son), Navigius
(Augustine's brother), Rusticus and Fastidianus (relatives), Alypius,
Trygetius, and Licentius (former pupils). My books testify to what I got done there in
writing, which was now hopefully devoted to thy service; though in this
pause it was still as if I were panting from my exertions in the school
of pride.276276 A somewhat oblique
acknowledgment of the fact that none of the Cassiciacum dialogues has
any distinctive or substantial Christian content. This has often been
pointed to as evidence that Augustine's conversion thus far had brought
him no farther than to a kind of Christian Platonism; cf. P. Alfaric,
L'Évolution intellectuelle de Saint Augustin (Paris,
1918). These were the books
in which I engaged in dialogue with my friends, and also those in
soliloquy before thee alone.277277 The dialogues written
during this stay at Cassiciacum: Contra Academicos, De beata
vita, De ordine, Soliloquia. See, in this series,
Vol. VI, pp. 17-63, for an English translation of the
Soliloquies. And there are my
letters to Nebridius, who was still absent.278278 Cf. Epistles II
and III.

When would there be enough time to recount all thy
great blessings which thou didst bestow on us in that time, especially
as I am hastening on to still greater mercies? For my memory recalls
them to me and it is pleasant to confess them to thee, O Lord: the
inward goads by which thou didst subdue me and how thou broughtest me
low, leveling the mountains and hills of my thoughts, straightening my
crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways. And I remember by what means
thou also didst subdue Alypius, my heart’s brother, to the name
of thy only Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ--which he at first
refused to have inserted in our writings. For at first he preferred
that they should smell of the cedars of the schools279279 A symbolic reference to
the "cedars of Lebanon"; cf. Isa. 2:12-14; Ps. 29:5.
which the Lord hath now broken down, rather than of the wholesome herbs
of the Church, hostile to serpents.280280 There is perhaps a
remote connection here with Luke 10:18-20.

8. O my God, how did I cry to thee when I read the
psalms of David, those hymns of faith, those paeans of devotion which
leave no room for swelling pride! I was still a novice in thy true
love, a catechumen keeping holiday at the villa, with Alypius, a
catechumen like myself. My mother was also with us--in woman’s
garb, but with a man’s faith, with the peacefulness of age and
the fullness of motherly love and Christian piety. What cries I used to
send up to thee in those songs, and how I was enkindled toward thee by
them! I burned to sing them if possible, throughout the whole world,
against the pride of the human race. And yet, indeed, they are sung
throughout the whole world, and none can hide himself from thy heat.
With what strong and bitter regret was I indignant at the Manicheans!
Yet I also pitied them; for they were ignorant of those sacraments,
those medicines281281 Ever since the time of
Ignatius of Antioch who referred to the Eucharist as "the medicine of
immortality," this had been a popular metaphor to refer to the
sacraments; cf. Ignatius, Ephesians 20:2.--and raved insanely
against the cure that might have made them sane! I wished they could
have been somewhere close by, and--without my knowledge--could have
seen my face and heard my words when, in that time of leisure, I pored
over the Fourth Psalm. And I wish they could have seen how that psalm
affected me.282282 Here follows (8-11) a
brief devotional commentary on Ps. 4. “When I called
upon thee, O God of my righteousness, thou didst hear me; thou didst
enlarge me when I was in distress. Have mercy upon me and hear my
prayer.” I wish they might have heard what I said in comment on
those words--without my knowing that they heard, lest they should think
that I was speaking it just on their account. For, indeed, I should not
have said quite the same things, nor quite in the same way, if I had
known that I was heard and seen by them. And if I had so spoken, they
would not have meant the same things to them as they did to me when I
spoke by and for myself before thee, out of the private affections of
my soul.

9. By turns I trembled with fear and warmed with hope
and rejoiced in thy mercy, O Father. And all these feelings showed
forth in my eyes and voice when thy good Spirit turned to us and said,
“O sons of men, how long will you be slow of heart, how long will
you love vanity, and seek after falsehood?” For I had loved
vanity and sought after falsehood. And thou, O Lord, had already
magnified thy Holy One, raising him from the dead and setting him at
thy right hand, that thence he should send forth from on high his
promised “Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth.” Already he had
sent him, and I knew it not. He had sent him because he was now
magnified, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven. For till
then “the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not
yet glorified.”283283John 7:39. And the prophet
cried out: “How long will you be slow of heart? How long will you
love vanity, and seek after falsehood? Know this, that the Lord hath
magnified his Holy One.” He cries, “How long?” He
cries, “Know this,” and I--so long “loving vanity,
and seeking after falsehood”--heard and trembled, because these
words were spoken to such a one as I remembered that I myself had been.
For in those phantoms which I once held for truth there was vanity and
falsehood. And I spoke many things loudly and earnestly--in the
contrition of my memory--which I wish they had heard, who still
“love vanity and seek after falsehood.” Perhaps they would
have been troubled, and have vomited up their error, and thou wouldst
have heard them when they cried to thee; for by a real death in the
flesh He died for us who now maketh intercession for us with thee.

10. I read on further, “Be angry, and sin
not.” And how deeply was I touched, O my God; for I had now
learned to be angry with myself for the things past, so that in the
future I might not sin. Yes, to be angry with good cause, for it was
not another nature out of the race of darkness that had sinned for
me--as they affirm who are not angry with themselves, and who store up
for themselves dire wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation
of thy righteous judgment. Nor were the good things I saw now outside
me, nor were they to be seen with the eyes of flesh in the light of the
earthly sun. For they that have their joys from without sink easily
into emptiness and are spilled out on those things that are visible and
temporal, and in their starving thoughts they lick their very shadows.
If only they would grow weary with their hunger and would say,
“Who will show us any good?” And we would answer, and they
would hear, “O Lord, the light of thy countenance shines bright
upon us.” For we are not that Light that enlightens every man,
but we are enlightened by thee, so that we who were formerly in
darkness may now be alight in thee. If only they could behold the inner
Light Eternal which, now that I had tasted it, I gnashed my teeth
because I could not show it to them unless they brought me their heart
in their eyes--their roving eyes--and said, “Who will show us any
good?” But even there, in the inner chamber of my soul--where I
was angry with myself; where I was inwardly pricked, where I had
offered my sacrifice, slaying my old man, and hoping in thee with the
new resolve of a new life with my trust laid in thee--even there thou
hadst begun to grow sweet to me and to “put gladness in my
heart.” And thus as I read all this, I cried aloud and felt its
inward meaning. Nor did I wish to be increased in worldly goods which
are wasted by time, for now I possessed, in thy eternal simplicity,
other corn and wine and oil.

11. And with a loud cry from my heart, I read the
following verse: “Oh, in peace! Oh, in the
Selfsame!”284284Idipsum--the
oneness and immutability of God. See how he says it:
“I will lay me down and take my rest.”285285 Cf. v. 9.
For who shall withstand us when the truth of this saying that is
written is made manifest: “Death is swallowed up in
victory”2862861 Cor. 15:54.? For surely thou,
who dost not change, art the Selfsame, and in thee is rest and oblivion
to all distress. There is none other beside thee, nor are we to toil
for those many things which are not thee, for only thou, O Lord, makest
me to dwell in hope.”

These things I read and was enkindled--but still I
could not discover what to do with those deaf and dead Manicheans to
whom I myself had belonged; for I had been a bitter and blind reviler
against these writings, honeyed with the honey of heaven and luminous
with thy light. And I was sorely grieved at these enemies of this
Scripture.

12. When shall I call to mind all that happened during
those holidays? I have not forgotten them; nor will I be silent about
the severity of thy scourge, and the amazing quickness of thy mercy.
During that time thou didst torture me with a toothache; and when it
had become so acute that I was not able to speak, it came into my heart
to urge all my friends who were present to pray for me to thee, the God
of all health. And I wrote it down on the tablet and gave it to them to
read. Presently, as we bowed our knees in supplication, the pain was
gone. But what pain? How did it go? I confess that I was terrified, O
Lord my God, because from my earliest years I had never experienced
such pain. And thy purposes were profoundly impressed upon me; and
rejoicing in faith, I praised thy name. But that faith allowed me no
rest in respect of my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me through
thy baptism.

CHAPTER V

13. Now that the vintage vacation was ended, I gave
notice to the citizens of Milan that they might provide their scholars
with another word-merchant. I gave as my reasons my determination to
serve thee and also my insufficiency for the task, because of the
difficulty in breathing and the pain in my chest.

And by letters I notified thy bishop, the holy man
Ambrose, of my former errors and my present resolution. And I asked his
advice as to which of thy books it was best for me to read so that I
might be the more ready and fit for the reception of so great a grace.
He recommended Isaiah the prophet; and I believe it was because Isaiah
foreshows more clearly than others the gospel, and the calling of the
Gentiles. But because I could not understand the first part and because
I imagined the rest to be like it, I laid it aside with the intention
of taking it up again later, when better practiced in our Lord’s
words.

CHAPTER VI

14. When the time arrived for me to give in my name, we
left the country and returned to Milan. Alypius also resolved to be
born again in thee at the same time. He was already clothed with the
humility that befits thy sacraments, and was so brave a tamer of his
body that he would walk the frozen Italian soil with his naked feet,
which called for unusual fortitude. We took with us the boy Adeodatus,
my son after the flesh, the offspring of my sin. Thou hadst made of him
a noble lad. He was barely fifteen years old, but his intelligence
excelled that of many grave and learned men. I confess to thee thy
gifts, O Lord my God, creator of all, who hast power to reform our
deformities--for there was nothing of me in that boy but the sin. For
it was thou who didst inspire us to foster him in thy discipline, and
none other--thy gifts I confess to thee. There is a book of mine,
entitled De Magistro.287287Concerning the
Teacher; cf. Vol. VI of this series, pp. 64-101. It is a dialogue
between Adeodatus and me, and thou knowest that all things there put
into the mouth of my interlocutor are his, though he was then only in
his sixteenth year. Many other gifts even more wonderful I found in
him. His talent was a source of awe to me. And who but thou couldst be
the worker of such marvels? And thou didst quickly remove his life from
the earth, and even now I recall him to mind with a sense of security,
because I fear nothing for his childhood or youth, nor for his whole
career. We took him for our companion, as if he were the same age in
grace with ourselves, to be trained with ourselves in thy discipline.
And so we were baptized and the anxiety about our past life left
us.

Nor did I ever have enough in those days of the
wondrous sweetness of meditating on the depth of thy counsels
concerning the salvation of the human race. How freely did I weep in
thy hymns and canticles; how deeply was I moved by the voices of thy
sweet-speaking Church! The voices flowed into my ears; and the truth
was poured forth into my heart, where the tide of my devotion
overflowed, and my tears ran down, and I was happy in all these
things.

CHAPTER VII

15. The church of Milan had only recently begun to
employ this mode of consolation and exaltation with all the brethren
singing together with great earnestness of voice and heart. For it was
only about a year--not much more--since Justina, the mother of the
boy-emperor Valentinian, had persecuted thy servant Ambrose on behalf
of her heresy, in which she had been seduced by the Arians. The devoted
people kept guard in the church, prepared to die with their bishop, thy
servant. Among them my mother, thy handmaid, taking a leading part in
those anxieties and vigils, lived there in prayer. And even though we
were still not wholly melted by the heat of thy Spirit, we were
nevertheless excited by the alarmed and disturbed city.

This was the time that the custom began, after the
manner of the Eastern Church, that hymns and psalms should be sung, so
that the people would not be worn out with the tedium of lamentation.
This custom, retained from then till now, has been imitated by many,
indeed, by almost all thy congregations throughout the rest of the
world.288288 This was apparently the
first introduction into the West of antiphonal chanting, which was
already widespread in the East. Ambrose brought it in; Gregory brought
it to perfection.

16. Then by a vision thou madest known to thy renowned
bishop the spot where lay the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius, the
martyrs, whom thou hadst preserved uncorrupted for so many years in thy
secret storehouse, so that thou mightest produce them at a fit time to
check a woman’s fury--a woman indeed, but also a queen! When they
were discovered and dug up and brought with due honor to the basilica
of Ambrose, as they were borne along the road many who were troubled by
unclean spirits--the devils confessing themselves--were healed. And
there was also a certain man, a well-known citizen of the city, blind
many years, who, when he had asked and learned the reason for the
people’s tumultuous joy, rushed out and begged his guide to lead
him to the place. When he arrived there, he begged to be permitted to
touch with his handkerchief the bier of thy saints, whose death is
precious in thy sight. When he had done this, and put it to his eyes,
they were immediately opened. The fame of all this spread abroad; from
this thy glory shone more brightly. And also from this the mind of that
angry woman, though not enlarged to the sanity of a full faith, was
nevertheless restrained from the fury of persecution.

Thanks to thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast thou
led my memory, that I should confess such things as these to thee--for
great as they were, I had forgetfully passed them over? And yet at that
time, when the sweet savor of thy ointment was so fragrant, I did not
run after thee.289289 Cf. S. of Sol. 1:3,
4. Therefore, I wept
more bitterly as I listened to thy hymns, having so long panted after
thee. And now at length I could breathe as much as the space allows in
this our straw house.290290 Cf. Isa. 40:6; 1 Peter
1:24: "All flesh is grass." See Bk. XI, Ch. II, 3.

CHAPTER VIII

17. Thou, O Lord, who makest men of one mind to dwell
in a single house, also broughtest Evodius to join our company. He was
a young man of our city, who, while serving as a secret service agent,
was converted to thee and baptized before us. He had relinquished his
secular service, and prepared himself for thine. We were together, and
we were resolved to live together in our devout purpose.

We cast about for some place where we might be most
useful in our service to thee, and had planned on going back together
to Africa. And when we had got as far as Ostia on the Tiber, my mother
died.

I am passing over many things, for I must hasten.
Receive, O my God, my confessions and thanksgiving for the unnumbered
things about which I am silent. But I will not omit anything my mind
has brought back concerning thy handmaid who brought me forth--in her
flesh, that I might be born into this world’s light, and in her
heart, that I might be born to life eternal. I will not speak of her
gifts, but of thy gift in her; for she neither made herself nor trained
herself. Thou didst create her, and neither her father nor her mother
knew what kind of being was to come forth from them. And it was the rod
of thy Christ, the discipline of thy only Son, that trained her in thy
fear, in the house of one of thy faithful ones who was a sound member
of thy Church. Yet my mother did not attribute this good training of
hers as much to the diligence of her own mother as to that of a certain
elderly maidservant who had nursed her father, carrying him around on
her back, as big girls carried babies. Because of her long-time service
and also because of her extreme age and excellent character, she was
much respected by the heads of that Christian household. The care of
her master’s daughters was also committed to her, and she
performed her task with diligence. She was quite earnest in restraining
them with a holy severity when necessary and instructing them with a
sober sagacity. Thus, except at mealtimes at their parents’
table--when they were fed very temperately--she would not allow them to
drink even water, however parched they were with thirst. In this way
she took precautions against an evil custom and added the wholesome
advice: “You drink water now only because you don’t control
the wine; but when you are married and mistresses of pantry and cellar,
you may not care for water, but the habit of drinking will be
fixed.” By such a method of instruction, and her authority, she
restrained the longing of their tender age, and regulated even the
thirst of the girls to such a decorous control that they no longer
wanted what they ought not to have.

18. And yet, as thy handmaid related to me, her son,
there had stolen upon her a love of wine. For, in the ordinary course
of things, when her parents sent her as a sober maiden to draw wine
from the cask, she would hold a cup under the tap; and then, before she
poured the wine into the bottle, she would wet the tips of her lips
with a little of it, for more than this her taste refused. She did not
do this out of any craving for drink, but out of the overflowing
buoyancy of her time of life, which bubbles up with sportiveness and
youthful spirits, but is usually borne down by the gravity of the old
folks. And so, adding daily a little to that little--for “he that
contemns small things shall fall by a little here and a little
there”291291Ecclus. 19:1.--she slipped into
such a habit as to drink off eagerly her little cup nearly full of
wine.

Where now was that wise old woman and her strict
prohibition? Could anything prevail against our secret disease if thy
medicine, O Lord, did not watch over us? Though father and mother and
nurturers are absent, thou art present, who dost create, who callest,
and who also workest some good for our salvation, through those who are
set over us. What didst thou do at that time, O my God? How didst thou
heal her? How didst thou make her whole? Didst thou not bring forth
from another woman’s soul a hard and bitter insult, like a
surgeon’s knife from thy secret store, and with one thrust drain
off all that putrefaction? For the slave girl who used to accompany her
to the cellar fell to quarreling with her little mistress, as it
sometimes happened when she was alone with her, and cast in her teeth
this vice of hers, along with a very bitter insult: calling her
“a drunkard.” Stung by this taunt, my mother saw her own
vileness and immediately condemned and renounced it.

As the flattery of friends corrupts, so often do the
taunts of enemies instruct. Yet thou repayest them, not for the good
thou workest through their means, but for the malice they intended.
That angry slave girl wanted to infuriate her young mistress, not to
cure her; and that is why she spoke up when they were alone. Or perhaps
it was because their quarrel just happened to break out at that time
and place; or perhaps she was afraid of punishment for having told of
it so late.

But thou, O Lord, ruler of heaven and earth, who
changest to thy purposes the deepest floods and controls the turbulent
tide of the ages, thou healest one soul by the unsoundness of another;
so that no man, when he hears of such a happening, should attribute it
to his own power if another person whom he wishes to reform is reformed
through a word of his.

CHAPTER IX

19. Thus modestly and soberly brought up, she was made
subject to her parents by thee, rather more than by her parents to
thee. She arrived at a marriageable age, and she was given to a husband
whom she served as her lord. And she busied herself to gain him to
thee, preaching thee to him by her behavior, in which thou madest her
fair and reverently amiable, and admirable to her husband. For she
endured with patience his infidelity and never had any dissension with
her husband on this account. For she waited for thy mercy upon him
until, by believing in thee, he might become chaste.

Moreover, even though he was earnest in friendship, he
was also violent in anger; but she had learned that an angry husband
should not be resisted, either in deed or in word. But as soon as he
had grown calm and was tranquil, and she saw a fitting moment, she
would give him a reason for her conduct, if he had been excited
unreasonably. As a result, while many matrons whose husbands were more
gentle than hers bore the marks of blows on their disfigured faces, and
would in private talk blame the behavior of their husbands, she would
blame their tongues, admonishing them seriously--though in a jesting
manner--that from the hour they heard what are called the matrimonial
tablets read to them, they should think of them as instruments by which
they were made servants. So, always being mindful of their condition,
they ought not to set themselves up in opposition to their lords. And,
knowing what a furious, bad-tempered husband she endured, they marveled
that it had never been rumored, nor was there any mark to show, that
Patricius had ever beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic
strife between them, even for a day. And when they asked her
confidentially the reason for this, she taught them the rule I have
mentioned. Those who observed it confirmed the wisdom of it and
rejoiced; those who did not observe it were bullied and vexed.

20. Even her mother-in-law, who was at first prejudiced
against her by the whisperings of malicious servants, she conquered by
submission, persevering in it with patience and meekness; with the
result that the mother-in-law told her son of the tales of the meddling
servants which had disturbed the domestic peace between herself and her
daughter-in-law and begged him to punish them for it. In conformity
with his mother’s wish, and in the interest of family discipline
to insure the future harmony of its members, he had those servants
beaten who were pointed out by her who had discovered them; and she
promised a similar reward to anyone else who, thinking to please her,
should say anything evil of her daughter-in-law. After this no one
dared to do so, and they lived together with a wonderful sweetness of
mutual good will.

21. This other great gift thou also didst bestow, O my
God, my Mercy, upon that good handmaid of thine, in whose womb thou
didst create me. It was that whenever she could she acted as a
peacemaker between any differing and discordant spirits, and when she
heard very bitter things on either side of a controversy--the kind of
bloated and undigested discord which often belches forth bitter words,
when crude malice is breathed out by sharp tongues to a present friend
against an absent enemy--she would disclose nothing about the one to
the other except what might serve toward their reconciliation. This
might seem a small good to me if I did not know to my sorrow countless
persons who, through the horrid and far-spreading infection of sin, not
only repeat to enemies mutually enraged things said in passion against
each other, but also add some things that were never said at all. It
ought not to be enough in a truly humane man merely not to incite or
increase the enmities of men by evil-speaking; he ought likewise to
endeavor by kind words to extinguish them. Such a one was she--and
thou, her most intimate instructor, didst teach her in the school of
her heart.

22. Finally, her own husband, now toward the end of his
earthly existence, she won over to thee. Henceforth, she had no cause
to complain of unfaithfulness in him, which she had endured before he
became one of the faithful. She was also the servant of thy servants.
All those who knew her greatly praised, honored, and loved thee in her
because, through the witness of the fruits of a holy life, they
recognized thee present in her heart. For she had “been the wife
of one man,”2922921 Tim. 5:9. had honored her
parents, had guided her house in piety, was highly reputed for good
works, and brought up her children, travailing in labor with them as
often as she saw them swerving from thee. Lastly, to all of us, O
Lord--since of thy favor thou allowest thy servants to speak--to all of
us who lived together in that association before her death in thee she
devoted such care as she might have if she had been mother of us all;
she served us as if she had been the daughter of us all.

CHAPTER X

23. As the day now approached on which she was to
depart this life--a day which thou knewest, but which we did not--it
happened (though I believe it was by thy secret ways arranged) that she
and I stood alone, leaning in a certain window from which the garden of
the house we occupied at Ostia could be seen. Here in this place,
removed from the crowd, we were resting ourselves for the voyage after
the fatigues of a long journey.

We were conversing alone very pleasantly and
“forgetting those things which are past, and reaching forward
toward those things which are future.”293293Phil. 3:13. We
were in the present--and in the presence of Truth (which thou
art)--discussing together what is the nature of the eternal life of the
saints: which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into
the heart of man.294294 Cf. 1 Cor. 2:9. We opened wide the
mouth of our heart, thirsting for those supernal streams of thy
fountain, “the fountain of life” which is with
thee,295295Ps. 36:9. that we might be sprinkled with its waters
according to our capacity and might in some measure weigh the truth of
so profound a mystery.

24. And when our conversation had brought us to the
point where the very highest of physical sense and the most intense
illumination of physical light seemed, in comparison with the sweetness
of that life to come, not worthy of comparison, nor even of mention, we
lifted ourselves with a more ardent love toward the Selfsame,296296Idipsum. and we gradually passed through all the
levels of bodily objects, and even through the heaven itself, where the
sun and moon and stars shine on the earth. Indeed, we soared higher yet
by an inner musing, speaking and marveling at thy works.

And we came at last to our own minds and went beyond
them, that we might climb as high as that region of unfailing plenty
where thou feedest Israel forever with the food of truth, where life is
that Wisdom by whom all things are made, both which have been and which
are to be. Wisdom is not made, but is as she has been and forever shall
be; for “to have been” and “to be hereafter” do
not apply to her, but only “to be,” because she is eternal
and “to have been” and “to be hereafter” are
not eternal.

And while we were thus speaking and straining after
her, we just barely touched her with the whole effort of our hearts.
Then with a sigh, leaving the first fruits of the Spirit bound to that
ecstasy, we returned to the sounds of our own tongue, where the spoken
word had both beginning and end.297297 Cf. this report of a
"Christian ecstasy" with the Plotinian ecstasy recounted in Bk. VII,
Ch. XVII, 23, above. But what is
like to thy Word, our Lord, who remaineth in himself without becoming
old, and “makes all things new”298298 Cf. Wis. 7:21-30; see
especially v. 27: "And being but one, she [Wisdom] can do all things:
and remaining in herself the same, she makes all things new."?

25. What we said went something like this: “If to
any man the tumult of the flesh were silenced; and the phantoms of
earth and waters and air were silenced; and the poles were silent as
well; indeed, if the very soul grew silent to herself, and went beyond
herself by not thinking of herself; if fancies and imaginary
revelations were silenced; if every tongue and every sign and every
transient thing--for actually if any man could hear them, all these
would say, ‘We did not create ourselves, but were created by Him
who abides forever’--and if, having uttered this, they too should
be silent, having stirred our ears to hear him who created them; and if
then he alone spoke, not through them but by himself, that we might
hear his word, not in fleshly tongue or angelic voice, nor sound of
thunder, nor the obscurity of a parable, but might hear him--him for
whose sake we love these things--if we could hear him without these, as
we two now strained ourselves to do, we then with rapid thought might
touch on that Eternal Wisdom which abides over all. And if this could
be sustained, and other visions of a far different kind be taken away,
and this one should so ravish and absorb and envelop its beholder in
these inward joys that his life might be eternally like that one moment
of knowledge which we now sighed after--would not this be the
reality of the saying, ‘Enter into the joy of thy
Lord’299299Matt. 25:21.? But when shall such
a thing be? Shall it not be ‘when we all shall rise again,’
and shall it not be that ‘all things will be
changed’3003001 Cor. 15:51.?”

26. Such a thought I was expressing, and if not in this
manner and in these words, still, O Lord, thou knowest that on that day
we were talking thus and that this world, with all its joys, seemed
cheap to us even as we spoke. Then my mother said: “Son, for
myself I have no longer any pleasure in anything in this life. Now that
my hopes in this world are satisfied, I do not know what more I want
here or why I am here. There was indeed one thing for which I wished to
tarry a little in this life, and that was that I might see you a
Catholic Christian before I died. My God hath answered this more than
abundantly, so that I see you now made his servant and spurning all
earthly happiness. What more am I to do here?”

CHAPTER XI

27. I do not well remember what reply I made to her
about this. However, it was scarcely five days later--certainly not
much more--that she was prostrated by fever. While she was sick, she
fainted one day and was for a short time quite unconscious. We hurried
to her, and when she soon regained her senses, she looked at me and my
brother301301 Navigius, who had joined
them in Milan, but about whom Augustine is curiously silent save for
the brief and unrevealing references in De beata vita, I, 6, to
II, 7, and De ordine, I, 2-3. as we stood by her,
and said, in inquiry, “Where was I?” Then looking intently
at us, dumb in our grief, she said, “Here in this place shall you
bury your mother.” I was silent and held back my tears; but my
brother said something, wishing her the happier lot of dying in her own
country and not abroad. When she heard this, she fixed him with her eye
and an anxious countenance, because he savored of such earthly
concerns, and then gazing at me she said, “See how he
speaks.” Soon after, she said to us both: “Lay this body
anywhere, and do not let the care of it be a trouble to you at all.
Only this I ask: that you will remember me at the Lord’s altar,
wherever you are.” And when she had expressed her wish in such
words as she could, she fell silent, in heavy pain with her increasing
sickness.

28. But as I thought about thy gifts, O invisible God,
which thou plantest in the heart of thy faithful ones, from which such
marvelous fruits spring up, I rejoiced and gave thanks to thee,
remembering what I had known of how she had always been much concerned
about her burial place, which she had provided and prepared for herself
by the body of her husband. For as they had lived very peacefully
together, her desire had always been--so little is the human mind
capable of grasping things divine--that this last should be added to
all that happiness, and commented on by others: that, after her
pilgrimage beyond the sea, it would be granted her that the two of
them, so united on earth, should lie in the same grave.

When this vanity, through the bounty of thy goodness,
had begun to be no longer in her heart, I do not know; but I joyfully
marveled at what she had thus disclosed to me--though indeed in our
conversation in the window, when she said, “What is there here
for me to do any more?” she appeared not to desire to die in her
own country. I heard later on that, during our stay in Ostia, she had
been talking in maternal confidence to some of my friends about her
contempt of this life and the blessing of death. When they were amazed
at the courage which was given her, a woman, and had asked her whether
she did not dread having her body buried so far from her own city, she
replied: “Nothing is far from God. I do not fear that, at the end
of time, he should not know the place whence he is to resurrect
me.” And so on the ninth day of her sickness, in the fifty-sixth
year of her life and the thirty-third of mine,302302 A.D. 387. that
religious and devout soul was set loose from the body.

CHAPTER XII

29. I closed her eyes; and there flowed in a great
sadness on my heart and it was passing into tears, when at the strong
behest of my mind my eyes sucked back the fountain dry, and sorrow was
in me like a convulsion. As soon as she breathed her last, the boy
Adeodatus burst out wailing; but he was checked by us all, and became
quiet. Likewise, my own childish feeling which was, through the
youthful voice of my heart, seeking escape in tears, was held back and
silenced. For we did not consider it fitting to celebrate that death
with tearful wails and groanings. This is the way those who die unhappy
or are altogether dead are usually mourned. But she neither died
unhappy nor did she altogether die.303303Nec omnino
moriebatur. Is this an echo of Horace's famous memorial ode,
Exegi monumentum aere perennius . . . non omnis moriar? Cf.
Odes, Book III, Ode XXX. For of this we
were assured by the witness of her good life, her “faith
unfeigned,”3043041 Tim. 1:5. and other manifest
evidence.

30. What was it, then, that hurt me so grievously in my
heart except the newly made wound, caused from having the sweet and
dear habit of living together with her suddenly broken? I was full of
joy because of her testimony in her last illness, when she praised my
dutiful attention and called me kind, and recalled with great affection
of love that she had never heard any harsh or reproachful sound from my
mouth against her. But yet, O my God who made us, how can that honor I
paid her be compared with her service to me? I was then left destitute
of a great comfort in her, and my soul was stricken; and that life was
torn apart, as it were, which had been made but one out of hers and
mine together.305305 Cf. this passage, as
Augustine doubtless intended, with the story of his morbid and
immoderate grief at the death of his boyhood friend, above, Bk. IV,
Chs. IV, 9, to VII, 12.

31. When the boy was restrained from weeping, Evodius
took up the Psalter and began to sing, with the whole household
responding, the psalm, “I will sing of mercy and judgment unto
thee, O Lord.”306306Ps. 101:1. And when they heard
what we were doing, many of the brethren and religious women came
together. And while those whose office it was to prepare for the
funeral went about their task according to custom, I discoursed in
another part of the house, with those who thought I should not be left
alone, on what was appropriate to the occasion. By this balm of truth,
I softened the anguish known to thee. They were unconscious of it and
listened intently and thought me free of any sense of sorrow. But in
thy ears, where none of them heard, I reproached myself for the
mildness of my feelings, and restrained the flow of my grief which
bowed a little to my will. The paroxysm returned again, and I knew what
I repressed in my heart, even though it did not make me burst forth
into tears or even change my countenance; and I was greatly annoyed
that these human things had such power over me, which in the due order
and destiny of our natural condition must of necessity happen. And so
with a new sorrow I sorrowed for my sorrow and was wasted with a
twofold sadness.

32. So, when the body was carried forth, we both went
and returned without tears. For neither in those prayers which we
poured forth to thee, when the sacrifice of our redemption was offered
up to thee for her--with the body placed by the side of the grave as
the custom is there, before it is lowered down into it--neither in
those prayers did I weep. But I was most grievously sad in secret all
the day, and with a troubled mind entreated thee, as I could, to heal
my sorrow; but thou didst not. I now believe that thou wast fixing in
my memory, by this one lesson, the power of the bonds of all habit,
even on a mind which now no longer feeds upon deception. It then
occurred to me that it would be a good thing to go and bathe, for I had
heard that the word for bath [balneum] took its name from the
Greek balaneion [βαλανειον],
because it washes anxiety from the mind. Now see, this also I confess
to thy mercy, “O Father of the fatherless”307307Ps. 68:5.: I bathed and felt the same as I had done
before. For the bitterness of my grief was not sweated from my
heart.

Then I slept, and when I awoke I found my grief not a
little assuaged. And as I lay there on my bed, those true verses of
Ambrose came to my mind, for thou art truly,

“Deus, creator omnium,

Polique rector, vestiens

Diem decoro lumine,

Noctem sopora gratia;

Artus solutos ut quies

Reddat laboris usui

Mentesque fessas allevet,

Luctusque solvat anxios.”

“O God, Creator of us all,

Guiding the orbs celestial,

Clothing the day with lovely light,

Appointing gracious sleep by night:

Thy grace our wearied limbs restore

To strengthened labor, as before,

And ease the grief of tired minds

From that deep torment which it
finds.”308308 Sir Tobie Matthew
(adapted). For Augustine's own analysis of the scan­sion and
structure of this hymn, see De musica, VI, 2:2-3; for a brief
commentary on the Latin text, see A. S. Walpole, Early Latin
Hymns (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 44-49.

33. And then, little by little, there came back to me
my former memories of thy handmaid: her devout life toward thee, her
holy tenderness and attentiveness toward us, which had suddenly been
taken away from me--and it was a solace for me to weep in thy sight,
for her and for myself, about her and about myself. Thus I set free the
tears which before I repressed, that they might flow at will, spreading
them out as a pillow beneath my heart. And it rested on them, for thy
ears were near me--not those of a man, who would have made a scornful
comment about my weeping. But now in writing I confess it to thee, O
Lord! Read it who will, and comment how he will, and if he finds me to
have sinned in weeping for my mother for part of an hour--that mother
who was for a while dead to my eyes, who had for many years wept for me
that I might live in thy eyes--let him not laugh at me; but if he be a
man of generous love, let him weep for my sins against thee, the Father
of all the brethren of thy Christ.

CHAPTER XIII

34. Now that my heart is healed of that wound--so far
as it can be charged against me as a carnal affection--I pour out to
thee, O our God, on behalf of thy handmaid, tears of a very different
sort: those which flow from a spirit broken by the thoughts of the
dangers of every soul that dies in Adam. And while she had been
“made alive” in Christ3093091 Cor. 15:22. even before she
was freed from the flesh, and had so lived as to praise thy name both
by her faith and by her life, yet I would not dare say that from the
time thou didst regenerate her by baptism no word came out of her mouth
against thy precepts. But it has been declared by thy Son, the Truth,
that “whosoever shall say to his brother, You fool, shall be in
danger of hell-fire.”310310Matt. 5:22. And there would be
doom even for the life of a praiseworthy man if thou judgedst it with
thy mercy set aside. But since thou dost not so stringently inquire
after our sins, we hope with confidence to find some place in thy
presence. But whoever recounts his actual and true merits to thee, what
is he doing but recounting to thee thy own gifts? Oh, if only men would
know themselves as men, then “he that glories” would
“glory in the Lord”3113112 Cor. 10:17.!

35. Thus now, O my Praise and my Life, O God of my
heart, forgetting for a little her good deeds for which I give joyful
thanks to thee, I now beseech thee for the sins of my mother. Hearken
unto me, through that Medicine of our wounds, who didst hang upon the
tree and who sittest at thy right hand “making intercession for
us.”312312Rom. 8:34. I know that she
acted in mercy, and from the heart forgave her debtors their
debts.313313 Cf. Matt. 6:12. I beseech thee also to forgive her debts,
whatever she contracted during so many years since the water of
salvation. Forgive her, O Lord, forgive her, I beseech thee;
“enter not into judgment” with her.314314Ps. 143:2.
Let thy mercy be exalted above thy justice, for thy words are true and
thou hast promised mercy to the merciful, that the merciful shall
obtain mercy.315315Matt. 5:7. This is thy gift,
who hast mercy on whom thou wilt and who wilt have compassion on whom
thou dost have compassion on.316316 Cf. Rom. 9:15.

36. Indeed, I believe thou hast already done what I ask
of thee, but “accept the freewill offerings of my mouth, O
Lord.”317317Ps. 119:108. For when the day of
her dissolution was so close, she took no thought to have her body
sumptuously wrapped or embalmed with spices. Nor did she covet a
handsome monument, or even care to be buried in her own country. About
these things she gave no commands at all, but only desired to have her
name remembered at thy altar, where she had served without the omission
of a single day, and where she knew that the holy sacrifice was
dispensed by which that handwriting that was against us is blotted out;
and that enemy vanquished who, when he summed up our offenses and
searched for something to bring against us, could find nothing in Him,
in whom we conquer.

Who will restore to him the innocent blood? Who will
repay him the price with which he bought us, so as to take us from him?
Thus to the sacrament of our redemption did thy hand maid bind her soul
by the bond of faith. Let none separate her from thy protection. Let
not the “lion” and “dragon” bar her way by
force or fraud. For she will not reply that she owes nothing, lest she
be convicted and duped by that cunning deceiver. Rather, she will
answer that her sins are forgiven by Him to whom no one is able to
repay the price which he, who owed us nothing, laid down for us
all.

37. Therefore, let her rest in peace with her husband,
before and after whom she was married to no other man; whom she obeyed
with patience, bringing fruit to thee that she might also win him for
thee. And inspire, O my Lord my God, inspire thy servants, my brothers;
thy sons, my masters, who with voice and heart and writings I serve,
that as many of them as shall read these confessions may also at thy
altar remember Monica, thy handmaid, together with Patricius, once her
husband; by whose flesh thou didst bring me into this life, in a manner
I know not. May they with pious affection remember my parents in this
transitory life, and remember my brothers under thee our Father in our
Catholic mother; and remember my fellow citizens in the eternal
Jerusalem, for which thy people sigh in their pilgrimage from birth
until their return. So be fulfilled what my mother desired of me--more
richly in the prayers of so many gained for her through these
confessions of mine than by my prayers alone.

276 A somewhat oblique
acknowledgment of the fact that none of the Cassiciacum dialogues has
any distinctive or substantial Christian content. This has often been
pointed to as evidence that Augustine's conversion thus far had brought
him no farther than to a kind of Christian Platonism; cf. P. Alfaric,
L'Évolution intellectuelle de Saint Augustin (Paris,
1918).

277 The dialogues written
during this stay at Cassiciacum: Contra Academicos, De beata
vita, De ordine, Soliloquia. See, in this series,
Vol. VI, pp. 17-63, for an English translation of the
Soliloquies.

281 Ever since the time of
Ignatius of Antioch who referred to the Eucharist as "the medicine of
immortality," this had been a popular metaphor to refer to the
sacraments; cf. Ignatius, Ephesians 20:2.

308 Sir Tobie Matthew
(adapted). For Augustine's own analysis of the scan­sion and
structure of this hymn, see De musica, VI, 2:2-3; for a brief
commentary on the Latin text, see A. S. Walpole, Early Latin
Hymns (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 44-49.